As you can probably guess we only recently incorporated Waveson so I thought I’d share my experience. Once myself and Steve thought we needed to incorporate I asked a contracting friend, who I believed had a company, how to go about it. It turns out that he’s actually self employed so that forms the first question you should ask yourself: Do I need to setup a company or register as self employed (or a partnership)? My advice is to check on the Web for the differences and failing that seek professional advice.

This friend recommended I speak to his accountant who in turn gave me contact details for a formation agent. In the meantime I had checked out the Companies Registration Office website, www.cro.ie, which I have to acknowledge is actually very easy to use.

Setting up a company is actually very straightforward. Along with the registration fee only three documents are needed:

1. Form A1
2. Memorandum of association
3. Articles of association

In putting together the application you must also decide a few things about the company:

1. The type of company.
2. The name of the company.
3. The registered office of the company.
4. The activity carried out by the company in the State.
5. Who are the directors and secretary of the company.

Also on the site you will see that there are basically two ways to register a company: apply yourself or get a formation agent to do it for you. Since I had not done this before and in particular didn’t have any copies of the Articles and Memorandum of Association the formation agent was opted for. It also happens to be quicker.

How much?

The formation agent recommended by my friends accountant charged €345 (incl. VAT). At the time, May 2006, I checked a number of other agents who were charging more or less the same but quite a few were charging more.

What did we get?

1. Certificate of Incorporation.
2. Four bound copies of the Articles & Memorandum of Association.
3. Minutes of a Meeting of the Board of Directors.
4. Company Register / Minute Book.
5. Company Seal (Embosser)

Value for money?

Not great, we thought. Why? Well, now if you search for company formations you should see some cheaper prices now than what we originally paid. Some sites offer you just the documents for €75 (which you get download elsewhere for free – towards the end of this page, for example). The CRO charges €100 plus 0.5% of the issued capital but just check incorporation costs in the UK; far less than Ireland even taking the CRO charges into account. There are two reasons you should use a formation agent and even then try to get them at €260 or less:

1. You are in a hurry. (It’s faster for an agent by up to two weeks.)
2. You don’t have a copy of Articles & Memorandum of Association.

In the future this is what I’m going to do, it’s slower but cheaper:

1. Download, print and fill out the A1 form which is here.
   You also need to figure out which NACE code (which signifies the company’s activities) to use. The list is here.
2. Download these three files and adjust them for the new company (items to change are in yellow):
   1. Memorandum of Association
   2. Articles of Association
   3. Minutes of a Meeting of the Board of Directors (to be kept and not sent to the CRO).
3. Visit a Commissioner of Oaths to witness some signatures on the A1 form and Memorandum & Articles of Association. (For the extra cost, ironically, in our case, our agent had a very, very loose definition of witnessing signatures.)
4. Send the completed A1 form, the Memorandum & Articles of Association and fee (€100 CRO fee + 0.5%).
5. Buy a company seal embosser and Company register / minute book. You can find these on the Web for well under €100 including delivery.